Sunday, September 20, 2015

Politics and Religious Polarization

By Rudy Barnes, Jr.

At a town hall meeting last week Donald
Trump was told by a supporter: “We have a problem in
this country, it’s called Muslims” and that “We know our current President is one. You know, he’s not even an American.” He then asked Trump what he intended to do
about Muslim “training camps” in the U.S.
Trump was criticized for not correcting the supporter, but he was
voicing broadly held views that reflect increasing religious polarization in
the U.S.

Religious
polarization is one of the objectives of the Islamic State, or ISIS, and the
Republican Party in the U.S. and right-wing political parties in Europe like
that of Hungary’s Viktor Orban are aiding and abetting ISIS in achieving that
objective by fueling the fires of religious fear and hatred. The best defense against Islamist terrorists
like ISIS is to deny them legitimacy among Muslims, and that requires
supporting moderate Muslims who are seeking to define Islam as a religion
compatible with democracy, human rights and the secular rule of law.

It
is wrong to denigrate Islam as an inherently violent religion, and equally
wrong to deny that ISIS is a militant and fundamentalist form of Islam. ISIS is just as much a distorted form of
Islam as the Christian Crusades and Inquisitions were distorted forms of
Christianity. The distorted Islamist
doctrines of ISIS are based on fundamentalist Salafist and Wahhabist doctrines of
Islam that are currently being debated within Islam. The future of Islam as a religion of peace
and justice depends upon moderates prevailing over fundamentalists in defining the
nature of Islam in a way that denies legitimacy to radical Islamist doctrines like
those of ISIS.

Religion
has been a major cause of hatred and violence and continues to be so today, and
religion must play a major role in finding a lasting peace. Both Christianity and Islam have exclusivist
and fundamentalist forms that condemn unbelievers and seek to impose their standards
of legitimacy on others. Historically the
institutional church has distorted the teachings of Jesus to create religious
doctrines consistent with worldly power, and Islamism uses similar exclusivist and
fundamentalist religious doctrines to achieve the same political objective.

Today
Christianity is the world’s largest religion.
Christians and Muslims make up over half of the world’s population, but
by 2070 it is expected that Islam will supplant Christianity as the world’s
largest religion. The increasing political
polarization of Christians and Muslims has been exacerbated by the refugee
crisis which has greatly increased the chances for religious violence; but violence
can be minimized if Christians are true to the teachings of Jesus and Muslims
insist upon modern interpretations of the teachings of Muhammad in the Qur’an.

In
2007 a distinguished group of Islamic scholars offered the greatest commandment to love God and one’s neighbors as oneself—even
one’s unbelieving neighbors—as a common word of faith for Jews,
Christians and Muslims alike. The love
for others requires providing the freedoms of religion and speech, and since apostasy
and blasphemy laws continue to deny those fundamental freedoms in Islamic
cultures there is some doubt whether loving one’s unbelieving neighbor is
consistent with the Islamic faith. And
while many Christian leaders applauded a
common word of faith, only a few have since taken steps to make the moral
imperative to love our neighbors—even our Muslim neighbors—a central theme of the
Christian religion.

If
Christianity and Islam put the moral imperative to love others, even
unbelievers, at the heart of their religious doctrines, there would be much
less religious polarization and resulting religious violence. To that end Christians who follow the
teachings of Jesus should lead the way.

Jesus
taught that God’s will is to reconcile and redeem all people in the universal family of God, but without favoring any one
religion over others. Satan’s will is to
divide and conquer people of faith, and Satan does a convincing imitation of
God, with some of his best acting in the synagogue, church and mosque. Reconciliation and redemption take place when
God’s love and mercy are shared with others, and Satan’s fear and hate oppose God’s
reconciling love. It should be obvious
which religions are aligned with God and with Satan in the great cosmic battle
for the hearts and minds of believers.

Partisan
politics in the U.S. invariably produce polarizing political and religious issues
that are used to mobilize the constituencies of those seeking power. The Republican Party includes Christian
fundamentalists and others who favor traditional values, while Democrats include
socialists, feminists, LGBT people and other minorities. Republicans favor “boots on the ground” to
assert U.S. power overseas, while Democrats favor restraint. And in Islamic cultures those seeking
political power play on similar exclusivist and polarizing themes. In the quest for political power, polarization
is the norm rather than the exception.
To avoid the exacerbation of religious violence, the politics of
polarization must be replaced by a politics of reconciliation.

Religions
must lead the way to a politics of religious reconciliation. Christians must bring their religion back to
the teachings of Jesus, and Muslims must define Islam as a religion of peace
and justice compatible with democracy, human rights and the secular rule of law
in order to deny the legitimacy of radical Islamism. Religious reconciliation must begin with a
genuine affirmation of the greatest
commandment as a common word of
faith for Jews, Christians and Muslims.
If that happens, there will be far less danger of religious polarization
and violence.

Notes
and References to Resources:

Previous blogs on related topics
are: Faith and Freedom, December 15,
2014; Religion, Violence and Military
Legitimacy, December 29, 2014; Religion
and New Beginnings: Salvation and Reconciliation into the Family of God,
January 4, 2015; The Greatest Commandment,
January 11, 2015; Love over Law: A
Principle at the Heart of Legitimacy, January 18, 2015; Jesus Meets Muhammad: Is There a Common Word
of Faith for Jews, Christians and Muslims Today? January 25, 2015; Promoting
Religion through Evangelism: Bringing Light or Darkness, February 8, 2015; God and Country: Resolving Conflicting
Concepts of Sovereignty, March 29, 2015; Faith as a Source of Morality and Law: The Heart of Legitimacy,
April 12, 2015; A Fundamental Problem with Religion, May 3, 2015; Religion,
Human Rights and National Security, May 10, 2015; The Future of Religion: In Decline and Growing, June 7, 2015; Christians
Meet Muslims Today, June 14, 2015; Fear
and Fundamentalism, July 26, 2015; Freedom
and Fundamentalism, August 2, 2015; How
Religious Fundamentalism and Secularism Shape Politics and Human Rights,
August 16, 2015; and The European Refugee
Crisis and Radical Islam, September 6, 2015.

Donald Trump was criticized for
not correcting a supporter who asserted that President Obama is a Muslim and
not even an American. Trump responded by
saying that “The bigger issue is that Obama is waging war against Christians in
this country. Their religious liberty is
at stake.”